A U.S. drone strike in
Afghanistan killed at least 15 civilians on Wednesday, drawing United Nations
condemnation and calls for an independent probe into the attack.

In a statement,
the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said the civilians, all men,
"had gathered in a village to celebrate the return of a tribal elder from
the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca and were reportedly sleeping in a guesthouse of
the elder when the airstrike occurred. Civilian victims of the strike included
students and a teacher, as well as members of families considered to be
pro-government." In addition to those killed, 13 people including at least
one boy were injured in the strike.

"I saw dead and wounded bodies
everywhere," said Raghon
Shinwari, one of the wounded, from hospital bed in Jalalabad city.

U.S. military sources confirmed the
airstrike in Achin, a remote area near the Pakistan border. Brigadier
General Charles Cleveland said the U.S. "takes all allegations of civilian
casualties very seriously" and was "currently reviewing all materials
related to this strike."

In turn, UNAMA reiterated "the need for
all parties to the conflict to adhere to their obligations under international
humanitarian law" and demanded "a prompt, independent, impartial,
transparent, and effective investigation into this incident."

As AntiWar.comnoted,
"This would mark the second bungled U.S. airstrike in Afghanistan in a
little over a week, after a previous incident in which U.S. forces tried to
'rescue' Afghan police on the ground by blowing up their checkpoint and killing eight
of them."

And the Guardianpointed out that
"[t]he incident happened almost a year to the day after another U.S.
airstrike destroyed a Doctor Without Borders hospital in Kunduz,
killing 42. After that incident, the U.S. and the Afghan government refused
calls for an independent investigation."

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Friday, September 30, 2016

US at the
Crossroads: Start a New Nuclear Arms Race? Or Address Climate Change and Human
Needs?

What if I have little time left? How
should I spend my time? Most people face these questions in terms of their own
lifespans. But what if the subject of these sentences changes from “I” to “we?”
What if the subject is not an individual, but humanity? What if climate change
is shortening our human lifespan (and that of many species) to just a few
decades?

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA), August was the 16th consecutive
month of record temperatures for the planet. July was the hottest month on
record worldwide, until it was tied by August. Persistent drought conditions
already threaten water supplies and agricultural breadbaskets in the U.S. and
elsewhere

Arctic and Antarctic ice are melting at
unprecedented rates, as are glaciers in many countries, promising global sea
level rise that will threaten cities and countries everywhere. Glacier National
Park in Montana may have to change its name before too long, as the glaciers
are melting rapidly.

The U.K.-based Global Challenges
Foundation calculates Americans are five times more likely to die in a “human
extinction event” such as nuclear war, climate change-driven catastrophe or
pandemic, than to die in a car crash. One prominent climate scientist, Guy
McPherson of the University of Arizona, thinks humanity may not survive past
2030, fourteen years from now, from climate change and the resulting
breakdown in our food and water supply, and in the social order. We are already
seeing wars driven by climate change, the calamity in Syria perhaps the most
prominent example. The CIA and Pentagon clearly state climate change is helping
drive armed conflict in many regions, and expect it to get worse.

Nobody can know with any certainty at
this point how much time humanity has left on Earth. However, the question of
whether we have 14 years left, or 50 or 250, or much longer, doesn’t matter all
that much. The amount of money we’re about to squander on a New Nuclear Arms
Race, projected at $1 trillion over thirty years, is indefensible. Our tax
dollars and focus need to be on protecting life on Earth, not threatening its
extinction.

A New Nuclear Arms Race? Who
Wants That?

Under the benign or even positive
heading of “nuclear modernization,” the United States plans to spend an
estimated $1 trillion (it will surely be more than that – when was the last
time an exorbitant military project came in under budget?) to overhaul every
part of our nuclear weapons enterprise over the next three decades. Weapons
laboratories, warheads, missiles, planes and submarines are all slated to be
upgraded.

Predictably, every other nuclear weapons
state (Russia, China, France, the United Kingdom, Israel, India, Pakistan and
North Korea) is following suit and planning similar Dr. Strangelovian upgrades
to their arsenals. So our folly not only makes the world more dangerous in
terms of nuclear proliferation, it provides “leadership” down the dark path of
fear and destruction for countries that can afford this investment even less
than we can.

Besides the opportunity cost of
investing in new nukes – money that won’t go to cancer research, affordable housing,
health care for all, infrastructure repair and building the green economy –
what baffles is the lack of democracy and accountability. Did anybody vote for
this? Did any politicians run on this platform? Certainly not President Obama,
who ran on reducing and eventually eliminating nuclear weapons worldwide, yet
agreed to The New Nuclear Arms Race proposal in exchange for ratification of
the modest New START agreement with Russia, a very poor trade-off.

Regardless of that,
the politicians and government employees who have hatched this mad scheme work
for us. We pay their salaries, and our tax dollars fund the weapons and the
research, and the contracts that go to Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing,
Northrop Grumman and the other merchants of death. When they say there is no
money for addressing climate change and human needs, that’s a lie. It’s going
to the endless war machine. An interesting data point – the UN Environment
Program estimates it will take about $300 billion to adapt to climate change
worldwide by 2030. That’s about half the Pentagon’s annual budget.

Harvard Professor Elaine Scarry, in her
recent book Thermonuclear Anarchy, makes the crucial argument that
our nominal democracy is completely undercut when it comes to human survival,
because one person (the president, in the case of the U.S.) can make the
decision to start a nuclear war which could end life on Earth.

In the last few weeks, this issue has
gotten significant attention, as many are mortified at the prospect of Donald
Trump having control of the nuclear “button.” This has had a positive effect in
terms of raising this issue, as President Obama is reportedly considering
changing U.S. nuclear doctrine to a No First Use policy. Some Members of
Congress are also pushing for that, with U.S. Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) and Senator
Edward Markey (D-MA) introducing a bill to prohibit a U.S. nuclear first strike
absent a Congressional declaration of war. Sen. Markey has also introduced the
SANE Act to significantly cut investment in the New Nuclear Arms Race, and U.S.
Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) has a companion bill in the House of
Representatives.

This outbreak of democracy regarding U.S.
nuclear weapons is healthy, but much more will be needed to stop the colossal
squandering of resources on the New Nuclear Arms Race in order to restore
sanity to our budgetary priorities. It’s up to us to determine our future,
however long that is. Can we say the future looks brighter, or longer, if we
stay on the current course?

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"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives."
Eugene Victor Debs